


The Lonely Sea and the Sky

by binz, shiplizard



Category: Forever (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Family Feels, Gen, Selkies, fathers and sons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-21
Updated: 2015-07-21
Packaged: 2018-04-10 10:06:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4387625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/binz/pseuds/binz, https://archiveofourown.org/users/shiplizard/pseuds/shiplizard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU: Abigail meets Henry on a beach, not a battlefield. Henry's father bequeathed him a sealksin, not a watch. They were (are) still a family.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Lonely Sea and the Sky

**Author's Note:**

  * For [idelthoughts](https://archiveofourown.org/users/idelthoughts/gifts).



> Written to celebrate Idelthoughts' return to the internet after a harrowing week away!

It’s almost two in the morning, and Abe can’t make himself sleep. Henry’s curt phone message had said that he’d been in late-- not to wait up-- but even as a kid he’d had a rebellious streak. And the call was at seven in the evening. 

He’d tried to get some shut-eye around ten. He’s an old man now, he’s had to make compromises for a body that doesn’t bounce back the way it used to, but every little noise kept waking him up-- a car door in the street outside, a creak that might be the front door opening, a clunk from the fridge that might be someone stepping inside. In the end he gave in and dragged himself out of bed to keep watch. 

Not that sleep hasn’t found him out here, too. But at least this way he can be disappointed quickly, every time he startles awake, thinks he heard the door open but sees the shop still empty.

A car slows as it reaches the intersection outside, headlights shining through the shop windows and jerking him awake again. The traffic lights change and the car drives on; he rubs at his eyes, squints up at the clocks on the wall, trying to make out the time in the dark. Maybe five minutes since the last time.

“Come on, Pops,” he says, out loud, like a voice in the dark might call him home. “I’m getting too old for this. If I get another call to come rescue your ass from Nova Scotia, I swear--” he leaves the threat hanging. The shop is quiet and empty. 

At some point, between trips to the bathroom and trips to the kitchen for water and tea, he falls asleep deeply enough that the early morning traffic doesn’t wake him, half-wrapped in a throw, the book he never turned a light on to read on the floor beside him. 

A car stops outside, stirring him, and he’s tired enough not to jerk completely awake. A door slams and there are voices, then steps coming up to the stoop, and he blinks and squints, sees the dark figure at the door and the yellow smear of a taxi pulling away. This time it really is the door opening, closing, someone stepping inside, flicking on the light.

“Abraham,” his dad says, stopping in the doorway. “What are you doing up?”

Abe squints, the shop light too bright after hours in the dark. “Henry,” he says, his voice cracking and fuzzy. “Doing a little five am shopping, I see.” 

Henry hoists the waterproof dufflebag he’s carrying, looking down at it dourly. “I thought some part of the day should be productive.” 

“That good, huh?” 

“His sister, Abraham. The poor woman was his sister.” Henry says, an angry bark in his voice. “My God, it is difficult to remember why I stay ashore.” 

“Something about not liking romance on a timetable,” Abe says casually. “Right? That’s what you said? And sex on the beach is a drink, not a viable lifestyle?” He’s exhausted-- wants nothing more than to sleep, but he pushes himself up to his feet, keeping his voice light. He has to play this off like it’s normal. It has to be normal. It can’t be the end of anything. Just a bad night like all the other bad nights. 

He reaches out and takes the bag-- so heavy he grunts, and Henry looks concerned. 

“Let me--” 

“Nah, I got it.” Abe shoulders the bag and starts up the stairs to the kitchen. Even through the zippers he can smell fish and saltwater and river water. Henry hovers behind him, just behind his left shoulder until he’s got the kitchen light on and the duffel settled in the sink. 

He hides his shaking hands from Henry as he forces the zip open, letting cold water stream out. There’s half a dozen fat little sea bass in there, and one big cod so long it’s bent into a U to fit in the bag. 

“Wow. When you go out for seafood…” 

“It’s good for you.” Henry sniffs. “I went out to sea. I don’t want you eating those filthy river fish.” 

“You eat those filthy river fish.” 

“I have tolerances that you haven’t.” 

“You don’t have to go offshore for me, Pops.” There’s sharks out there. That guy caught one right off the coast of Manhattan the other year. Just a little one, sure, but what about the rest of them? His dad’s a tough fighter, going by the teeth marks scouring up the cod, but he’s so much smaller in the ocean. He’d be no match for a hungry great white.

“If you’re going to pick me up a treat, maybe those little biscuits we had in Amsterdam next time. The cinnamon ones. Good with coffee,” he says, instead of the thing about the sharks.

Henry takes a few aborted steps, like he wants to pace, and huffs disgustedly. 

“You want to tell me about it?” Abe gets a knife out, a cutting board, and plops one of the bass down to start cleaning it. 

“The poor woman came in-- it was the famine and the elements that did for her as much as the overdose. You could count every rib, she’d been living on the street so long that she’d got eye damage from sleep deprivation, the poor woman. Her brother came in to identify the body-- recognized her, nodded, walked away. ‘Always going to go that way,’ he said,” Henry seethes. “His family. I believe he was _relieved_ that she had died.” 

Another angry snort-- hugely capacious lungs emptying in one burst, and Henry turns on his heel and stalks to the window, looking out into the still black morning. “What an extraordinary lack of self-reflection it must have taken to decide that the word ‘humanity’ meant benevolence and empathy.” 

Abe focuses on cleaning the fish, his hands unsteady with the lack of sleep. Guts. Gills. Carefully working the filet off the bones. Leave the skin on, it grills up good. He could freeze the rest and leave them for later, but … he doesn’t want to go to bed and leave Henry in this mood. He’s a little afraid he’ll wake up and his dad will be gone again, maybe this time for longer. 

That one time it was two weeks before he got the call from Halifax. And there was a time before. Abe doesn’t remember that. He was just a baby; he heard it from his mom, how distant and-- feral-- how Henry had spent the first week sounding like a drunk because he’d been out of the habit of talking for so long.

Henry’s indrawn breath tells him something’s wrong before he feels it. He looks down stupidly, and there’s a thin bright line on his thumb where it got in the way of the knife. Barely more than a papercut; it’ll sting, but it’s not serious. He’s just tired is all. 

“Oh, Abe,” Henry murmurs sadly. “You’re exhausted. I ought to have sent you to bed.” 

“M’fine. You look like you need the company.” 

“Nonsense, young man.” His father takes the knife from his unresisting hand, tugs his arm under the faucet and rinses the little cut clean. He presses a folded paper towel into his hand. “Hold this to it. I’ll be right back.” 

“It’s just a scratch--” He gives in, leaning back against the counter until Henry comes back with a band-aid and the bactine. Henry cleans the cut seriously like it’s anything at all, like it’s not already done bleeding, wraps the band-aid around it and kisses his thumb solemnly. 

“Dad,” he protests. “Seventy, not seven.” 

“You’re still my little boy,” Henry says. “And I’m sending you to your room. Get some sleep. I’ll finish this.” 

“I’m fine, I really am--” 

“Abraham.” 

“Yeah, all right,” he says, putting up his hands. He’s too tired to handle the serious-parent face right now. “All right, I’m going.”

He feels Henry’ eyes on his back all the way down the hall, but it’s not like he’s playing hooky tonight. And he is far too old to be climbing out any windows. He settles himself carefully into bed, groaning a little, and drags the duvet half over him. 

He falls asleep almost at once, but it’s not any more restful than the hour or so he got on the chair-- he keeps having these dreams that he’s still in that chair, still waiting, and half awake he doesn’t remember if that’s the dream or if Henry being home was the dream. 

He dreams of his mom, telling him a story from far away, her voice clearer when he’s asleep than he can remember it when he’s awake. _You were so small. The only name for an animal you knew was ‘doggy’, and the cows were ‘doggy’ and the cats were ‘doggy’ and the horses were too... We let the village think you were calling him ‘daddy’. And you were, after a while, so that was all right…._

He still has nightmares of the time he wandered out of the house when he was two years old, looking for his mom-- he doesn’t remember that, he just remembers the howling wind and the dark water that almost swallowed him up and the big dark shape in the water-- 

But the nightmares don’t have beginnings or ends, just the feeling of falling or being carried away. He’s cold and stiff. Maybe he’s still asleep in the chair, waiting, maybe Henry never came home. 

“Abe,” his father says, and he wakes all the way up-- there’s bluish light through the crack in the curtains, morning threatening to happen to an unsuspecting city. The duvet is mostly trapped under him, and he’s shivering. 

“Trying to sleep, P’ps,” he mutters; his eyelids have fallen closed again and seem to be too heavy to budge.

“I know. Get some rest. I’ll open the shop.” Henry untangles the duvet, pulling it up to his ears and tucking it in. He bends down and kisses Abe’s forehead, smelling like minty toothpaste with just the hint of fishbreath. 

Henry tucks another layer over him, too heavy to be a blanket-- it’s a familiar, comforting weight that has an unfortunate whiff of the Hudson, but it’s warm and dry and it mostly smells like his dad. He rubs his fingertips against the soft, leathery skin, and this time when he shuts his eyes there aren’t any nightmares to wake him up. 

_I woke up the whole village looking for you, and when I got home, he was there. He had you all bundled up in a sealskin against the cold, and you were sobbing and clinging to him, and he was standing there naked with his eyes all black and his teeth so sharp, and he said ‘Madam, I believe you misplaced this.’_

_I held out my arms, but he didn’t want to give you up, not really. So I invited him inside, instead._

_You called the cats ‘doggy’ and the cows ‘doggy’ and the horses ‘doggy’ and of course you called seals ‘doggy’ too. You called him ‘doggy’, he thought that was so funny but we let people think you meant ‘daddy’, and very soon you did._

_The very first time you called him ‘daddy’ he looked so happy. I think that’s when I fell in love with him; he’d never looked so handsome as then, smiling like the sun had just come up._

The sun has come up, when Abe wakes, hot under layers of duvet and seal skin and daytime heat. If he listens, he can just hear the sound of Henry downstairs, quiet voices in the shop. He wonders if it’s Henry’s day off, or he’d taken it off for him. It doesn’t really matter. Selfish, maybe, but it means his dad’s home, still where he belongs. 

He blinks, and the sun’s jumped a foot. Blinks again, and his eyes stay shut for hours, hands wrapped in the seal skin, as good as a promise that his father will take care of him, will be there when he wakes not just today but tomorrow too.


End file.
